thought exercise on Music

The musicologist and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin estimates that we hear about five hours of music per day. It sounds impossible, but Levitin is counting everything: elevator music, movie scores, com...

Johann Sebastian Bach said, “All music should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the soul’s refreshment; where this is not remembered there is no real music but only a devilish hub-bu...

These days, music is everywhere. It’s on television and film, elevators and restaurants, public bathrooms and dentist offices. It’s in our cars and on our phones. With just a few taps to our screens, ...

The Shawshank Redemption contains a poignant scene in which a prisoner, Andy, locks himself into a restricted area and plays a record featuring opera singers. Beautiful music pours through the public ...

From 1992 to 1995 the world witnessed one of the worst civil conflicts, the Bosnian War. Three factions, each tied to a religion (Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Muslim Bosniaks), began attacking...

Music, vocal and instrumental, played a significant role in the organized institutionalized worship of ancient Israel. It was an accepted constituent of religious self-expression. Nevertheless, Israel...

When a musical instrument’s strings go loose, it sounds awful. But you can also overtighten the strings, breaking them or creating discord. There’s a perfect tension to grace and truth, which makes th...

When Johann Sebastian Bach sought to convey the heart of Christian truth through music, he chose the Mass as his foundation. His B Minor Mass begins with a heartfelt plea from the full chorus and orch...

Last year I joined the growing ranks of people who have made the return to music on vinyl. There is much debate in my family as to whether I’m a hipster or will soon be eating dinner at 4 p.m. and wea...

John Coltrane stands out as one of the giants of 20th-century jazz. His legacy is a generation of hearts touched and the light of God shining through his songs. Yet, for years, his work was haunted by...

The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away form God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt. So the blues on one hand — running away; gospel, the ...

From 1992 to 1995 the world witnessed one of the worst civil conflicts, the Bosnian War. Three factions, each tied to a religion (Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Muslim Bosniaks), began attacking...

The composer Ludwig Van Beethoven was a devout man (some considered at times puritanical) who considered himself to be inspired by God while writing his compositions. He also worked extremely hard to ...

The renowned conductor Arturo Toscanini once led a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in London. His mastery and the orchestra’s precision resulted in thunderous applause from the audience. At ...

Have you ever heard of a Stradivarius violin? It’s the gold standard of violins—instantly recognizable and famously expensive. These aren’t $29.95 instruments. One sold for $1 million, another for $4 ...

J.M. Montgomery’s novel Emily of New Moon has a passage that conveys the attractive and terrifying aspects of the mystery of God: It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, th...

Just this morning, my family attended church with our son who has autism. He was particularly enthused by the music today, and he was moving around quite a bit. A man in the choir noticed our son, and...

How much does a world-class violinist make? Well, that depends on how he markets himself. Have you ever heard of Joshua Bell? He’s one of the finest classical musicians in the world. He plays to pac...

Mario told me I needed to listen to some Tupac. “Alright,” I said. “Let me hear his best stuff.” I didn’t tell Mario that, where I grew up, people who were saved didn’t listen to rap music. I’d been s...

Beethoven…turned out pieces of breath-taking rightness. Rightness—that’s the word! When you get the feeling that whatever note succeeds the last is the only possible note that can rightly happen at th...

There is no lack of pain and suffering in the world. Look around. Read the newspaper. Click on the Internet. Scroll Facebook or read a tweet. Suffering is always present like the paparazzi. It seems t...

The great composer Rachmaninoff was famously uncomfortable with being labeled a genius. He preferred to project an image of complete normalcy. Once, a stage-struck listener, enchanted by his “C-Sharp ...

In 1998, Nick Cave*, an Australian rock/pop artist, was asked by the Vienna Poetry Academy to give a series of talks on the nature of song-writing. A year later he gave a slightly revised version of t...

All great jazz musicians have at least three things in common: (1) they have gone into the practice room and learned and internalized all the scales, which are simply organized sequences of notes, unt...

Sir Thomas Beecham, a famous British conductor, was once asked advice from a lady regarding which instrument her son should learn next. Her son, whose first attempt at both the violin and trombone wer...

While acknowledging that any analogy of the Trinity is still incomplete, theologian and musician Jeremy Begbie thinks that we have overrelied on visual metaphors for understanding the Trinity and thin...

One summer, the composer Edvard Grieg stayed at a small Norwegian hotel. A restless child also resided there, constantly annoying the guests by attempting to play the piano, producing nothing but disc...

John Ruskin (1819-1900), the famous art historian, wrote about a beautiful tradition that existed among the shepherds of the Swiss Alps during his lifetime. These shepherds grazed their flocks often i...

Richard Foster wrote once of a father walking through a mall with his two-year-old son. The child was cranky; he kept whining and wriggling and complaining. The father struggled to remain patient. …[...

An Admirer once asked Leonard Bernstein, celebrated orchestra conductor, what was the hardest instrument to play. He replied without hesitation: “Second fiddle. I can always get plenty of first violin...